Page:Robert Carter- his life and work. 1807-1889 (IA robertcarterhis00coch).pdf/70

54 second year. He had a numerous family, several of whom attained distinction. They were remarkable for their great stature, and he used to refer to his six daughters as “my thirty-six feet of daughters.” Mr. Carter met Miss Catharine Sinclair in 1841, and said he was very glad when she sat down to talk to him, for he did not like to look up to a woman who towered so far above him. The following letter from her is interesting for its pictures of a time so long passed, and shows the cordial relations which subsisted from the very first between this publisher and his authors.

“Your very acceptable and interesting letter reached me on the 12th, and I have to thank you also for a packet of books, among which ‘Hill and Valley’ appeared as an old friend with a new face. The printing is so correct and the binding so handsome that our publishers here must really look to themselves to keep pace with you. I am now bringing out a third thousand of ‘Hill and Valley,’ which has met with exactly a similar reception to that you so obligingly inform me of at New York, being more approved of, but less sold, than the works of fiction, which are always more popular, so that authors are not encouraged to speak the truth.

“&thinsp;‘Holiday House’ is already in a second edition, and I was greatly annoyed to perceive that Mr. W. had not sufficiently attended to my directions about forwarding the sheets to you, which I had trusted entirely to his doing, because as long as I hold a pen it will be a gratification to me that you should continue the office you so kindly assumed at first of sponsor for my works at New York. Mr. W. is now in London. I know that he received your letter and remittance in due course, but several of the works you ordered lately are out of print, as indeed many of our best standard authors are now, to make way for the flood of modern literature crowding into the press every day.